Affected by historic floods which caused significant damage, Pas-de-Calais remains on orange alert for floods on Thursday, and should not experience a decline “before at least Friday”, warned Wednesday, November 8, the Minister of ecological transition, Christophe Béchu.
In a bulletin published Wednesday at 4 p.m., Vigicrues places three new rivers in the department on orange alert: in addition to the Canche, maintained at this alert level, the Liane, the Hem and the Aa are now affected. This orange vigilance will also apply to the entire department on Thursday for rain-flooding. “Precipitation is in progress today [Wednesday] and more significant news on Thursday risks accentuating the current flood on the Canche”, a coastal river in the south-west of the department, which crosses Le Touquet, writes Vigicrues in particular.
Christophe Béchu, who visited the disaster-stricken town of Saint-Etienne-au-Mont, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, on Wednesday morning, warned that “this episode is not completely behind us.” “The weather forecasts lead us to believe that tomorrow [Thursday], it will be necessary to return certain sectors to red alert due to the risk of flooding,” he added.
“In an exceptional situation, an exceptional device”: Mr. Béchu then went to Arques, where a mega-pump was deployed by civil security to pump excess water from the Aa and send it to a neighboring canal in order to “protect a dike put under pressure by the water level”.
The state of natural disaster will be triggered during a meeting on November 14 for the affected towns in Pas-de-Calais and the North, announced the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who had also move.
The Canche, the Liane, the Hem and the Aa are experiencing “historic” floods, underlined prefect Jacques Billant, the last three having already exceeded their reference peak, while the Canche should exceed it in the evening. The floods have affected living areas where more than 200,000 people live, he said.
Mr. Darmanin praised a “reduced human toll (…)”, which has not increased since two people were injured on Monday.
“Six months’ worth of rainfall” in 30 days
Before being placed on red flood alert Monday afternoon, Pas-de-Calais had already been shaken by flooding during storm Ciaran last week. Mr. Béchu specified that in the space of 30 days, there had fallen “the equivalent of six months of precipitation”, with the last week alone representing “three months of precipitation”.
Middle and high schools in the Liane and Aa basins were able to reopen on Wednesday, after remaining closed on Tuesday at the request of the prefecture. On the other hand, train traffic should only resume on Thursday on the Calais-Amiens line, according to SNCF.
The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, sent on “.
The Red Cross, which set up three emergency accommodation centers, accommodated around fifteen disaster victims for the night in the one in Saint-Etienne-au-Mont. “Some residents have not had electricity for a certain time, some have lost all their household appliances, there are needs to eat, to eat,” said Brigitte Passebosc, the mayor of the town, where 300 homes were damaged.
An orange flood alert also concerns two departments in the west of France, Charente-Maritime and Charente. On Tuesday, a 70-year-old man died after falling into the Charente river in Fontclaireau, in a flooded area, according to the Angoulême public prosecutor’s office.
